For years Downs House, the racing yard a quarter of a mile from the start of the Derby and once home to the greatest racehorse of all time, Eclipse, has symbolised Epsom’s decline as a training centre: decaying, derelict and unloved. It is demonstrative of the town’s almost total disconnect from the world’s most iconic Flat race.
In the 1960s, some 650 horses were trained in Epsom and among its 23 yards it housed the two biggest strings in the country.
But the last of its 13 Grand National winners was Specify in 1971 and, given that you do not even have to go up to the top floor of the grandstands to see the City of London, the value in the yards was always going to be in development for housing.
Half the original yards were sold to property developers, to the point where now Epsom is very much fifth after Newmarket, Lambourn, Malton and Middleham among the country’s recognised training centres.
A complete restoration to the glory days is still some way off but there are more than green shoots of a revival. Jim Boyle has redeveloped South Hatch, the yard where Walter Nightingale trained for Sir Winston Churchill, and, in January, Stewards’ Cup-winning trainer George Baker will move 50 horses into a revamped Downs House.
The yard has been transformed by Mark Travers, a New Zealander who was born in Wales, who has undertaken a seven-year project to restore it. Like all building projects, it has taken longer and cost more than he anticipated.
‘It’s a massive opportunity for owners’
“Dad trained in New Zealand and I thought I’d be here for a while but go back home,” he says. “But I’ve been here 20 years and settled down. I looked at buying a yard in Newmarket but then I saw this: derelict but on the doorstep of London.
“It’s a massive opportunity for owners. On a Saturday morning it’s 20 minutes from London, you can pop down to see your horse and be back for the kids’ sport by 10. It’s right in the centre of all that’s the Derby. I wanted to make it state-of-the-art and it just snowballed.”
It now has room for 70 horses, boasts a 12-horse walker and everything, from airflow to (unbreakable) glass stable-top doors, is underpinned by horse welfare.
Baker, who won the Stewards’ Cup in August with 40-1 shot Get It from his Chiddingfold base and takes horses to Bahrain for the lucrative prize money on offer between December and March, originally had no intention of moving.
“A year ago, if you’d said we’d be moving to Epsom and had offered me a million-to-one, I wouldn’t have had a pound coin on it,” he says. “But I guess if you’d said 20 years ago I’d train a horse it would also have been a million-to-one.
Things evolve and when we walked through the door of this incredible state-of-the-art yard, coupled with Mark’s ambition and with the amazing gallops, which are totally underutilised, we were struck by it.
“There’s also a bit of the gambler in Candida [Baker’s wife] and we thought if we don’t do this then someone else will. What an opportunity. If we can be a tiny bit of the rejuvenation of Epsom, the training centre and the Derby, that’ll be fantastic. It’s hard to say no to something like that.”
Winning the Stewards’ Cup at Goodwood was, for Baker, a Sussex man, his best day in the sport.
“I was basically a racing fan. I was never going to train. I watched 30 Stewards’ Cups before I even became a trainer, so to be leading in the winner of that race at our local track surrounded by a huge number of friends and family, that was a magical day.
“This move is very much aligned with our ongoing satellite yard in Bahrain. Winters are committed to Bahrain and we’ll take eight out there in December. A lot of this is about getting new owners.
“I can virtually see my son Barney sitting at his desk in the City from here. People in London are working hard during the week and it’s hard for them to go to Newmarket or Middleham at the weekend.
“Here they can jump on a train, watch their horse, have a bit of breakfast and be back home before the children are awake.
“We’re taking 50 horses and hoping to fill it in two years. There are a lot of good trainers in Epsom but we want to be a trainer for London.”
